


Midnight Talks

by EternalDust



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Historical References, Late 1950s Early 1960s Setting, Late Night Conversations, M/M, so this is my contribution to alleviating that, these two never get written together and that is an absolute shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25985716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalDust/pseuds/EternalDust
Summary: Yao knows, perhaps better than anyone, the way that Natalia yearns to feel bruises in the shape of Ivan’s fingerprints linger on her hips; the way that she would happily die at his hand if it meant that she could be the center of his attention for a day. How tragic, then, that Ivan’s ever-rough hands have landed on Yao instead.
Relationships: Belarus/China (Hetalia), Belarus/Russia (Hetalia), China/Russia (Hetalia)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Midnight Talks

**Author's Note:**

> Early Sino-Soviet Split, because trying to write the tension of the inevitable is interesting. Plus, Natalia is a much more interesting character than people often give her credit for.

The curtains are drawn tight, but a little light still manages to filter in, between the street-lamps and the moon. Natalia lets her fingers ghost over the skin of Yao’s neck, pushing stray hairs out of the way to see the little red marks that dot Yao’s even, tanned skin. Yao does not flinch at her touch, but his eyes flutter a little, he swallows, and his fingers clench tighter around the mug in his hands.

“He will kill you,” Natalia whispers, careful to make sure that her voice will not carry any farther than Yao’s ear. “If you aren’t careful.”

“I know,” Yao replies, voice equally quiet. “I won’t let him.”

“And yet you’re still here.” Natalia’s fingers still as they reach Yao’s collarbone, delicately trimmed nails ghosting over the blood-red silk of Yao’s nightclothes.

“Where else would I be but by his side?” Yao asks, perhaps sarcastically, as he brings the mug up to take another sip of his tea. “It’s not like I have a family expecting me at home.”

“Hyunsoo thinks of you as a father.”

“And Hyunsoo is here more often that not,” Yao replies, setting the mug down on the counter next to himself. “It is for the best that I am here, even if--”

“Even if it takes warming Ivan’s bed to have an excuse to stay?”

Yao’s eyes meets hers. “Like you’ve never wanted to do the same.”

Natalia can’t deny it. Yao knows, perhaps better than anyone, the way that Natalia yearns to feel bruises in the shape of Ivan’s fingerprints linger on her hips; the way that she would happily die at his hand if it meant that she could be the center of his attention for a day. How tragic, then, that Ivan’s ever-rough hands have landed on Yao instead.

“Why do you still want him?” she asks instead, her breath hitting against Yao’s neck as she leans into his side. 

“I remember when he was my savior,” Yao replies, casting his eyes upward to the plain ceiling and the light that the two of them had decided to leave off. “Tall, strong, back when he truly believed in things.”

“That was not so long ago.”

Yao laughs, but he does not smile. “No, it was not that long ago.”

Natalia lets her other hand ghost up the other side of Yao’s chest, settling on his shoulder. He looks her in the eye the way that one looks at someone when one doesn’t know whether to trust them or not. He is searching her face, one feature at a time. “He will not blame you,” Natalia whispers, “if it is with family.”

“You overestimate his forgiving nature.”

“And you overestimate his loyalty.”

Natalia leans in, then, placing a single kiss on Yao’s lips that the elder returns with a hint of lingering hesitance. His lips are soft, and sweet, but Natalia can still almost taste Ivan on them. Ivan always lingers on the people he touches.

“If you could be a human,” Yao says, when she pulls back, “who would you be?”

Natalia tilts her head, raising an eyebrow. “I’d be a soldier. I’d be born with the Soviet nation and I would die defending it from Hitler. I’d have done my duty and I’d be dead in the ground before I’d see my nation betrayed from within.” She palms Yao’s cheek, keeping the elder’s eyes on her. “Wouldn’t you do the same, for your nation?”

“My leaders are not revisionists.”

Natalia laughs. “You’d die for your people, though, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Then we agree on the important things.” She kisses him again, a little more strongly this time. Not too strong, she knows that Yao will never go beyond this simple comfort. But she wants, _needs,_ to feel someone against her, if just for a few moments. Her brother will never do it, nor will her sister, and while Toris may think she is pretty he’ll never be what she needs. Natalia has always liked the strong ones.

Yao’s hands settle on her waist, even as he tilts his head away from the kiss. “You want him to see us, don’t you?”

“If it meant that he would fuck the two of us together--”

Yao kisses her to shut her up. Natalia nearly laughs into his lips. You’d think that in five thousand years of life someone would learn to tolerate profanity, but Yao still hates the way that words like that pass people’s lips. Sometimes Natalia thinks it’s because he’s embarrassed by them, but other times she thinks that it’s because he can’t help but see the rest of them as children. Compared to him, anyone would be a child.

“If he saw us,” Natalia continues, when she pulls back, “then I’m sure he’d have some strong words for the both of us.”

“Didn’t you say earlier you thought he wouldn’t care?”

“I said he wouldn’t blame you. I said nothing about him not caring.”

Yao turns to look toward the closed door, his eyes falling as he lets go of her waist. “We shouldn’t talk about him, anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re more than just your relationship to him, Natalia.”

“But if I’m in love with him--”

“Do you think I’m not in love with him too?”

Natalia blinks. She backs a step away, her back hitting the counter on the opposite side of the kitchen. “I thought that feeling had passed, for you.”

Yao glances toward the window, sighing. “Unfortunately not.” He reaches for his mug, taking another sip. “I can pretend that it has, when the time comes. But I doubt that the feeling itself will pass for a long time.”

Natalia has always thought that Yao is better at pretending than most of them. He listens more often than he talks, and he’s always careful about his words. Any word he says, he’s prepared to defend, and any promise he makes he knows he must keep. If he wants to pretend that he has fallen out of love, he will do it convincingly. He will not let anything slip, not a word, not a twitch of his lips, not the look in his eyes. He will pretend until the lies he tells himself become truth. That is the way that Yao pretends, and it’s why Natalia is so fond of him. Other people lie, while keeping the truth close to their chest, but with Yao, even what was once lies are functionally true. He will never lie to her. He can’t.

“And will you hide that feeling away?” Natalia asks, not letting herself take the step towards him that she knows she wants to take. “Keep it inside until it shrivels up and dies?”

“Isn’t that how all feelings die? You show them, at first, when they are still acceptable, and then when you are expected to move on you keep them inside. You lock them away, and each day you think of them less and less, and eventually it is something that you used to feel.” Yao takes a deep breath. “There is only so long you can mourn someone before it destroys you.”

Natalia looks him in the eyes, trying to discern the emotion behind them. Nostalgia, regret, guilt? Who is Yao still mourning? It’s not Ivan, or at least Natalia doesn’t think it is. For all Yao loves her brother, Ivan is still far too present to be mourned. “You say that like you’ve been through it a thousand times before.”

Yao smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “No one gets to be my age without losing people that they love.”

“Humans or nations?”

“Both,” Yao says, finally setting his mug down on the counter. Empty. “The humans pass more easily, but the nations stay with me. Some of them, I don’t even remember their names. Whether they were to the north or to the west, whether they were older or younger than me, anything of importance. I just remember their smiles, their eyes, the way that we used to lay in open fields and watch clouds float by. Some of them were in love with me. Others hated me. And still others did not care about me at all.”

“And now they’re gone.”

“As far as I know, yes.” Yao bites his lip. “They were here one day, and they were gone the next. As if they’d never existed at all.”

His fingers are fidgeting, playing off against one another now that he has nothing to hold in his hands. It is guilt. Survivor’s guilt. “Do you wish that you’d been one of them?”

Yao raises an eyebrow. “In the sense of being gone?”

“Yes.”

He takes a deep breath, in, out, and Natalia can tell that she is correct. He directs his eyes to his fingers, and he does not seem to have any intention to look up or to answer her. He does not know how to answer, and when Yao does not know how to answer, he avoids the question.

“Natalia.”

“Yes?”

“Who would you want to remember you? If you disappeared tomorrow?”

“Only one person?”

“Yes.”

Natalia takes a deep breath. She will humor his obvious redirection, and she will try to answer honestly. It’s what she owes him, for putting up with her midnight talks. Her first thought is Ivan, simply because she loves him. But that passes quickly, because she does not matter to him, not in the way that he matters to her. Her memory will be wasted if she leaves it in Ivan’s hands. Katya is the next to come to mind, because she is the one who knows Natalia best, or at least knows their history best. When Natalia was young and foolish, Katya was always there to pull her up, dust her off, and set her back on track. A kiss to the forehead and some well-meaning, if useless words later, and Natalia would be as confident as ever. But Katya is not a good choice either, because as loving as Katya is, she is so often foolish. Katya will cherish her memory, but she will not put it to good use. The other Soviets wouldn’t be good choices either, because all of them fall into one of those two categories: too apathetic or too foolish. And really, that leaves the obvious option. “I’d pick you.”

Yao doesn’t look surprised. “Why?”

“Because you understand me.” Natalia takes a step forward, her confidence returning. “You and I are two sides of the same coin, aren’t we?”

“Are we?”

Natalia smiles, taking one of Yao’s hands in hers. “We’re in love with the same man, even for as little as we trust him. Passion is our greatest virtue, and also our greatest vice. We plan compulsively, and we let people think that they’ve outsmarted us even when we’ve rigged the game from the beginning.”

“Sometimes,” Yao says, “the game isn’t ours to rig.”

“You think it’s Ivan’s game that we’re playing?”

Yao almost looks like he could laugh. He doesn’t though, he leans forward and he whispers into her ear. “He knows we’re out here talking.”

Natalia doesn’t react. Ivan knows all her secrets anyway. She just didn’t think he knew Yao’s. “You’ve said plenty of things you wouldn’t want him to hear.”

“I never said he knew what we were talking about,” Yao replies. “But he doesn’t have to know the details to play us like chess pieces.”

Natalia lets her head fall onto Yao’s shoulder, looking up at him. “I’m a bishop, then, aren’t I? Powerful, but confined to a certain set of moves. You’re his queen.”

Yao doesn’t break, not even to glance down at her. “The king’s the most vulnerable piece on the board.”

“The queen’s role is to protect the king. Lose the queen–”

“And you’ve lost the game.”

Natalia smiles. “That makes you very precious to him, doesn’t it?”

Yao meets her eyes. “You assume he knows what strategy will work. We’re all playing this game blind.” He presses a single finger to her cheek, dragging it across the pale skin. “Besides, we don’t get to control the moves we make, do we? Even if he had the world’s most perfect strategy, if the leaders chose not to implement it–-”

“It wouldn’t matter a thing.” Natalia laughs. “He’ll lose you, and it’ll be of no fault of his own.”

“He hasn’t lost me, yet,” Yao says, carefully. Each word comes a little more slowly than the last, each sound demarcated and drawn out. “The question is–-will he lose you too?”

“We don’t get to decide that,” Natalia says, “do we?”

“No, no we don’t.”

Natalia stays there, tucked into Yao’s side in the darkness. For all of the times that she has taken him from Ivan’s grasp, for all of the times that she has made him understand her, this time feels different. They so often tease each other, draw each other out without outright saying what they mean. But today, in this particular darkness, they have said too much. They have crossed a line, and Yao will not let them cross it again. When he lets go of her tonight, he will not hold her again for a long time. So Natalia must hold this moment, must suspend it in the air and hope that the five hours before morning comes could double into ten.

They hear footsteps in the hall–-too light, not Ivan’s–-they part. Yao takes his mug, setting it down in the sink to wash in the morning. “Goodnight, Natalia.”

“Goodnight.”

Yao leaves, walking back down the hall to where Ivan is waiting for him. Raivis shuffles into the kitchen, hair still messy from bed and eyes half-asleep. Natalia ruffles his hair, and she walks back to bed. She tucks herself in, pulling the winter blankets into a cocoon, and tries to sleep.

Yao will not come to her the following night, nor the one after that, nor the nights in the months before he leaves Moscow and doesn’t return. Yao reads people too well. Ivan thought that he’d already lost Yao, and Yao wasn’t willing to take the bait that would convince him to stay.


End file.
